Yes, if you cry out for discernment,
And lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.

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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Miracles . . .

In Matthew 12, Jesus heals a man who was blind, mute, and possessed by demons. It doesn't say how long it took this man to recover sight, but i'm assuming it was rather instant.

In Matthew 15, crowds brought the lame, crippled, blind, etc., and set them at Jesus' feet. It says He healed them. It doesn't say how long, it merely says that He healed them.

In John 9, however, there's a variation. People thought this particular man or his parents had sinned, as he was born blind. Jesus said “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." This man was born blind for the purpose of becoming an example of God's ability to heal later in his life.
Not only this, there was action, though minor, required by this man. He had to go to a certain pool and wash his eyes. After that, he was healed. This strikes me as an act of faith; he could've just touched this man, said "be healed" and it be done. But no. The blind man had to keep the mud in his eyes and wash it out in that specific pool. If i were blind and someone spit in some dirt and put the mud from it in my eyes, i'd probably think they were crazy and wipe it off as soon as possible. But this required a demonstration of faith.

In Luke 18:35-43, He heals one such man who was a beggar. He told the man “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” It also says the man received his sight immediately.
"Receive your sight," He said. This man's faith in Jesus healed him. But the way Jesus commanded him, it was as though the man had sight within his grasp, he merely had to take hold of it. And Jesus told him to, so he did, and he could see that very moment.

There's a woman mentioned in Luke 8 who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. She'd spent all her money on trying to be healed by doctors, but none could help her. She approached Jesus and told herself, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”
She had enough faith in Jesus that she believed touching His very clothes would be enough to heal her when every physician she could ever afford had been unable to. And her faith was fulfilled, seeing as she was healed the moment she touched his garment.
This is what i find interesting; Jesus had people swarming Him, and the NIV even says "the crowds almost crushed Him." He wasn't merely surrounded, He was being mobbed; people pressing against Him and crowding Him. When she did touch His garment, He asked who touched Him. Peter responded with “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”
If you were the reason a crowd had formed, and people "almost crushed [you]," it'd be pretty hard to discern one single contact of your shirt. And Peter knew that. But Jesus said this: “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.”
He felt this woman's faith.
After she had fessed up to it, knowing it was she He was speaking of because her malady had been immediately healed, Jesus said “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
When this happened, it was actually while He was going to heal a dying girl, the only daughter of a man named Jairus (a ruler of the synagogue). Before Jesus had made His way to Jairus' house, the girl had died. He told them she wasn't dead, but sleeping. He took her hand, told her to rise, and her spirit returned, and she woke up.

There may be scientific explanations for many of the miracles He performed, such as maybe His saliva reacting with a mineral in that one specific pool that caused the blind man to see, maybe the woman's issue was working out and it just so happened that it stopped the moment she touched His cloak, maybe the girl was temporarily comatose and woke when He took her by the hand . . . I honestly believe most miracles to be scientifically explainable, but i don't really care if they are or not.
Just because we know the science of a child being formed in the womb doesn't mean it's any less of a miracle. Just because we breath in and know how the oxygen is dispersed into our bloodstream, that doesn't make it less miraculous. Just because there may have been a particular barometric phenomenon causing a cloud to be in front of the Israelites during the day and a fire by night, that doesn't mean it was less of a miracle. Just because we can explain how capillaries burst doesn't mean that Jesus sweating blood in Gethsemane couldn't be supernatural.
I'm not exactly the kind to have the reasoning of a child, as in unquestioning faith. I require proof in most instances. Sometimes there are scientific explanations of how things happen. Sometimes there is none. That doesn't mean they're any less wondrous or miraculous because we can understand them.

When God has the wind gathered into His fists, who am i to ask for explanation of His methods? Yet here i am . . . To quote the NKJV of Proverbs 30:2, "Surely I am more stupid than any man, And do not have the understanding of a man."